Intelligent Design and Religion
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Today's entry was written by David Opderbeck. David Opderbeck is Professor of Law and Director of the Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology at Seton Hall University Law School. He is also working on a Ph.D. in Philosophical Theology at the University of Nottingham and is Pastoral Science Scholar with the Center for Pastoral Science.
In this post I will discuss whether Intelligent Design theory is inherently “religious.” I’ll also offer some thoughts on ID and “natural theology.”
ID advocates vehemently deny that ID is a “religious” idea. They argue that the “designer” need not be “God” or any kind of deity. What they endeavor to offer is empirical evidence, developed according to scientific methods, of “design” in nature. They suggest that while ID theory might cohere with some religious views about the identity of the “designer,” it is just as amenable to a non-religious view in which the “designer” is a non-divine intelligent being.
A significant problem for ID advocates, however, is that “design” and “intelligence” are social constructs rooted deeply in theological and philosophical speculation about ultimate meaning and purposes. The very notion of “intelligent design” requires prior philosophical commitments about agency and teleology that must eventually refer to theological categories. I agree with great Christian thinkers such as Anselm and Aquinas: when we speak in terms of agency, purpose, causality, and “design,” we must ultimately implicate the uncaused cause, the unmoved mover, the undesigned designer – in other words, “God.”
Curiously, I think many Christian advocates of ID would agree with me about the ultimate implications of “design.” Their strategy, however, is a sort of “pre-apologetic,” structured to lead the hearer in the direction of “God.” They suggest that the argument can be cut off part way down the road while it is still “religiously neutral” – and therefore Constitutionally permissible as subject matter in the public schools – before the tipping point towards “God” is reached.
Perhaps ID advocates are correct that such a “half-way” approach could, under the right circumstances, avoid improper entanglement with “religion” under the U.S. Constitution’s establishment clause. Establishment clause jurisprudence is notoriously slippery. The Supreme Court has not always been clear about what test should apply under the establishment clause, and scholars and jurists differ about how the establishment clause should be interpreted. 1
But even if a plausible argument could be made for the constitutionality of teaching some version of ID in a public school, I personally find this “wedge” strategy pragmatically and theologically suspect. To be a bit crude, this reminds me of some of the ways in which young people try to engage in sexual activity without going “all the way.” It sounds good in principle, but it doesn’t really work and it isn’t very satisfying.
As a Christian theist with broadly Reformed theological presuppositions, I’m not persuaded that unaided human reason can arrive at “God.” This is the question of the nature and role of “natural theology.” One essential text for natural theology, Psalm 19, notes that all of creation declares God’s glory. The locus classicus of natural theology, Romans 1, states that human beings sinfully deny the natural knowledge of God. Christian theology thus has always recognized that in some sense God is “hidden” to unaided human reason.
God does not leave an empirical bread crumb trail in order to demonstrate His existence. Rather, the only way we can really know God is through the gracious work of the Holy Spirit, who illuminates to us what God has revealed about Himself. It is only by the Spirit that we are able truly to hear the “speech” and “knowledge” poured out by the heavens God created (Ps. 19). Only by God’s gracious self-revelation can we understand that all of “nature” is in fact creation.
In this light, our apologetic task is not primarily to identify statistical anomalies and gaps in the created order that could be filled by some amorphous “designer.” Our task is boldly and joyously to point people to the God revealed in Jesus Christ as the only possible source of all of creation. Here, we can suggest that the deep structures of creation, including many of the remarkable coincidences and convergences of life’s development, cohere with our admittedly limited understanding of the God whom we proclaim is creator of everything.
This view of natural theology admittedly differs from some other approaches in the Christian tradition in which natural theology is seen as supplying evidences that are readily ascertainable to unaided reason. Perhaps the height of this approach was reflected in William Paley’s “watchmaker” argument, which continues to inform ID literature today. I agree with theologians such as Thomas Torrance and Alister McGrath that this rationalistic approach to natural theology quickly becomes incoherent. As Torrance writes in Reality & Evangelical Theology: The Realism of Christian Revelation
The old approach regarded natural theology as supplying a ‘preamble to faith,’ an independent conceptual system antecedent to actual knowledge of God, but that is to separate form from content and method from subject matter and cannot but have the effect of distorting our knowledge of God by forcing it into inapposite or misleading forms of thought. . . . As such [natural theology] cannot stand on its own feet as an independent conceptual or logical structure detached from the material content of our actual knowledge of God, although it is certainly open to conceptual or logical analysis.
In my view, we must do this kind of “chastened” natural theology from a self-consciously and irreducibly theological standpoint that ultimately cannot be fully appreciated without the gracious prior work of the Spirit. This is an act of proclamation that simply cannot be undertaken in the pluralistic setting of a public school classroom. Indeed, why would we want to compromise our holistic and comprehensive understanding of God as “creator” in order to accommodate the Byzantine peculiarities of 21st century American constitutional jurisprudence?
Ours is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the I Am who spoke all creation into existence, the Triune Godhead who extended His perichoretic love to create and fellowship with that which is other than Himself, who in the person of the eternal Logos was present before the foundation of the world, in whom all things hold together and by whom all things will be made new. Should we diminish this God by suggesting that what He has done might just as well have been accomplished by some human-like alien “intelligence?” Isn’t this a strategy of denying Christ to appease Caesar?
Some resources on natural theology:
- Thomas Torrance, Reality & Evangelical Theology: The Realism of Christian Revelation
- Alister McGrath, The Open Secret: A New Vision for Natural Theology
; A Fine Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology
1. One highly influential establishment clause test was announced by the Court in Lemon v. Kurtzman, which requires that: “First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion . . . ; finally, the statute must not foster ‘an excessive government entanglement with religion.’” In recent cases, such as Agostini v. Felton, the Court seems to have collapsed the “purpose” and “entanglement” prongs of Lemon test into the “primary effect” prong. In yet other recent cases, such as Van Orden v. Perry, at least some of the Justices have questioned whether the Lemon test applies in every circumstance. Despite this significant ambiguity in the law, it remains clear that the establishment clause does not bar all interaction between government and religion.
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December 24th 2009
David,
You said:
There is nothing “curious” about this.You know that most ID proponents readily agree that ID has religious implications. Distinguishing between the science of ID (design detection in nature) and its philosophical and religious implications is something we do all the time. You are quite adept at separating Darwinism from its atheistic implications. Why the double standard?
It would seem you prove too much for the Biologos gang. Your arguments also undermine Collins’ and Tim Keller’s design arguments based on fine tuning in their recent books (and those of many philosophers down through the ages).
(cont.)
Reply to this commentDecember 24th 2009
(cont.)
Your analogy of ID science and ID implications to foreplay and sex is humorous but absurd. The point is we can distinguish foreplay from sex. No one says that Christians have to keep a rigid barrier between ID science and ID implications in their mind. No one would claim that foreplay is not foreplay because it always leads to sex. But many people make the argument that ID is not science because ID science always leads to religious implications. That is absurd.
I recommend Thomas Nagel’s thoughts on these issues:
Nagle on ID
http://philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/docs/IO/1172/papa_132.pdf
Reply to this commentDecember 24th 2009
David,
Perhaps your analogy to sex is not so absurd. Some might argue that the discovery of the many, many powerful examples of design in nature and the progression from ID science to its religious implications is a kind of intellectual ecstasy!
Can I quote you as suggesting that ID is like really good sex?
Reply to this commentDecember 24th 2009
pds—I don’t think I’m undermining fine tuning arguments at all. Those are “compatibilist” arguments—they show that reality as we understand it is compatible with Christian faith presuppositions. That is a “chastened” sort of “natural theology” that I think (following Torrance and McGrath) can be worthwhile.
Reply to this commentDecember 24th 2009
David,
That is not how I read Collins and Keller. It is also not how I read the arguments of Dallas Willard and Peter Kreeft.
BTW, how do you reconcile this with Romans 1?:
This says, it is “known, plain, clearly seen, understood,” but it is “suppressed by wickedness.” This seems at odds with your formulation.
Reply to this commentDecember 24th 2009
Wow! Could this explain the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa? Maybe the angel was holding a giant bacterial flagellum instead of a long spear of gold?
At any rate, there’s no need to worry about “going all the way” since ID is scientifically sterile. It is a negative argument against evolution. What ID-related research is going on? Are ID scientists writing up grant proposals? What does ID research look like, anyway? How would you seal off the designer from an experiment, as a control?
Reply to this commentDecember 24th 2009
pds—it’s exactly how I read Collins, Keller, and others who use the anthropic principle properly. It isn’t a “proof” of God. It is a soft coherence between what we know from revelation—including what we know from Romans 1—and what we seen in creation. Note that Romans 1 indicates that sin distorts our “natural” understanding of creation as revealing God’s attributes. Only by grace do we begin to understand this—not by empiricism. This is why I say natural theology has to be “chastened”. Natural theology is not, as many Enlightenment thinkers such as Paley assumed, an exercise of unaided reason that is neutrally accessible to anyone. It is, rather, nature-as-creation seen through the eyes of faith as facilitated by grace.
BTW, I don’t think ID even achieves this kind of soft coherence. ID tells us that most of nature appears to be “not designed”; we only really see “design” in certain anomalous statistical patterns. That strikes me as profoundly wrong.
Reply to this commentDecember 24th 2009
pds, Design detection is useless without a plausible material mechanism by which a designer can fabricate something. For instance, we might detect design in an ice sculpture and reject design in a snowflake. But no imagination is needed to understand how a designer (the ice sculptor) goes to work on a block of amorphorus ice to produced the result. Now, if the same ice sculpture were found deep inside a 100-million year-old glacier, or on the surface of Mars, the most likely explanation might not be design. Why? Because there is no plausible material mechanism by which a deisgner could have fabricated such a sculpture under those circumstances.
In fact, the famous “face on Mars” is easily dismissed as a natural phenomena with only the “appearence” of design. Had the same structure been found next to Stonehenge, it might be attributed to actual design. Why? Because it requires no imagination to assume that the same designers fabricated both structures. But who could have done this on Mars? You can’t have design without a designer (formal cause) who also has the material wherewithall to effect his will (efficient cause).
Reply to this commentDecember 24th 2009
And this is exactly why ID is religious. For atheists, there was no designer around on the surface of the earth after the period of heavy bombardment. And inventing such an ad-hoc being to answser one difficult question only raises another difficult question: what then is the material origin of the designer? So no matter how incomplete our knowledge may be of the possible biochemical intermediates between prebiotic soup and living cells, non-theists will invoke no designer. The first living cell will be treated just as the face on Mars is by planetary scientists. (Note: on Mars, only UFOloists will claim design!).
For theists, the idea of an all-powerful creator God provides a tempting “answer” to the question of life’s origin. But unless the ID’er can suggest a plausible mechansim by which an immaterial designer can manipultate organic macromolecules into biological information, the ID hypothesis answers nothing. It is a formal cuase without an efficient cause to carry it out. And solving the “mind/matter” engima will not prove any easier than solving the DNA information enigma.
Reply to this commentDecember 25th 2009
Gordon,
You said,
I think any knowledge of the truth is useful and valuable. Period.
The rest of your comment contains faulty logic and conclusions that I think most thoughtful Christians would disagree with.
I strongly disagree. And I find that a strange statement for a Christian to make.
Reply to this commentDecember 25th 2009
pds, we’re talking here about what science can/can’t do. Not what Christians should/shouldn’t accept. Of course all Christians should accept some form of teleological design.
The bottom line is that you can’t separate the designer from the material means by which he/she/it brings his/her/its plans to fruition. Again, why is the face on Mars dismissed by scientists as “apparent design” but a face carved in stone here on earth is attributed to design? Answer: because the design inference assumes the existence of a material mechanism by which a plan becomes a thing—which is probably why those who accept extra-terrestrial intelligence tend to attribute the face on Mars to design. They simply claim, “the aliens did it”. But no aliens = no design.
Like I said, the design hypothesis is meaningless without a possible means by which a designer could assemble/manufacture the object in question. This is why ID is inherently religious.
Reply to this commentDecember 26th 2009
I peronally do not understand why intelligent Christians should as US citizens totally surrender the education of their childrent to adamant atheists. We here can talk about philosophical imlication of this theory, or that, but to tolerate that all religious imlications of any theory are “verboten"in high schools is absurd and is a manifestation of a tyranny. Never mind “religion!” Little kids are not allowed to sing “Jimgle Bells” in many jurisdictions. I think kids could use a bit of Paley’s arguments, pro and con, etc, etc. their world view would certainly be enriched and widened by such exposure.
Reply to this commentDecember 26th 2009
@Gordon J. Glover - #1182
And this is exactly why ID is religious. For atheists, there was no designer around on the surface of the earth after the period of heavy bombardment. And inventing such an ad-hoc being to answser one difficult question only raises another difficult question: what then is the material origin of the designer? So no matter how incomplete our knowledge may be of the possible biochemical intermediates between prebiotic soup and living cells, non-theists will invoke no designer.
///
This is why I like the 0 x 0 = atheism slogan.
No matter how incomplete our knowledge, science is not moving us closer to nothing causing everything to be in existence.
The ONLY difficlut question, is: What (obviously, Who) created time?
And we need to start proclaiming, that there is nothing wrong about advocating for religion in our “public” schools.
Enough of the rule of humanism.
Reply to this commentDecember 27th 2009
Well, for one thing, we have a separation of church and state. It’s the law. Religion could conceivably be taught in a comparative religion course without breaking the law.
Reply to this commentDecember 27th 2009
But there are Christian biology teachers who don’t want to teach ID because they understand that it isn’t science. Look at the Dover trial.
btw, why are you so nasty and insulting?
Reply to this commentDecember 27th 2009
Human Ape shows why we need to stop holding atheist in any respectful or respectable position.
Those that hang their intelligence around 0 x 0 = the universe, are to be pitied or worse.
It is far past time to start ridiculing the humanists that demand to rule us.
Reply to this commentDecember 28th 2009
Not all atheists are rude. And not a few believers are rude. We need to look at the individual, don’t you think?
And those who run this blog need to moderate posts. The default setting for everyone should be moderated, until participants have demonstrated that they can be respectful. If the current software doesn’t have that feature, they need to look for something better. Registration and preview would be great to have also.
Reply to this commentDecember 29th 2009
Gordon (1205),
I understand your point, but I like to step back from this whole debate and ask myself a simple question – What if, in 1998, the Mars Orbiter Camera on the Mars Global Surveyor captured a higher resolution photo of the “face” that looked even more like a Face than the original 1976 photo? That is, a high resolution photo that shows a face as detailed as one on Mt. Rushmore. If that happened, I would strongly suspect that the Face was a real artifact. Of course, the higher resolution photo of the “Face” looked more like a mountain than a face.
Reply to this commentDecember 30th 2009
I don’ think “what if” analogies are very helpful.
The answer to a question of what we do when we run across an artifical object on Mars is that we can suspect there are or were beings intelligent enough to construct that object on Mars.
The analogy does not apply to biology because we have never encounted any artifical non-rudimentary (Spider web/bird nest) objects—ever, anywhere.
Reply to this commentDecember 30th 2009
Actually, I find this “what if” scenario to be quite helpful, as long as we don’t try to extract more than what there is. That is, just because we can’t point to anything in biology and legitimately declare it is equal to a detailed Face on Mars does not mean that the scenario is not helpful. What makes it helpful, for me, is another consideration - to more clearly see that independent information about the designers and their methods (something I call designer-centrism) is simply not required for me to have a reasonable suspicion of design. In other words, one step at a time.
Reply to this comment